


Born to Run

by nikola



Category: Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 22:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikola/pseuds/nikola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Final fantasy VIII, X and Supernatural crossover - in which Tidus's family and Squall's family are hunters. (saving people, hunting things) Only Tidus ran away to college after the whole apocalypse thing, but now his dad hasn't come home in a few days... Set after season 8 in Supernatural. Winchesters and their angel are mentioned, but don't make appearances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Angels

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the story. The title of the story comes from Bruce Springsteen's 'Born to Run'

 Tidus Ardenhein rarely has bad days. He prides himself in his ability to turn the bad into something good, something sparklier. He likes golden, sparkling, lively days when the sun is out and shining away like nothing is going to end it. But he also likes how rain soaks into the ground – how it puddles up on asphalt and reflects the murky sky above. Yesterday has been one of those rainy days. Its drizzle still smells moist in the air. Then something else gets mixed in the smell, too. Steaming, like a home he’s never had. Eggs. Tidus turns away from the gray window and the grayer city view. The boy is coming into the room, somehow balancing three plates of eggs and toast on his arms.

 “Hey, thanks.” Tidus grins. The boy meets his eyes. He doesn’t smile, though. just shrugs and sets the plates on the table.

 “Just eggs.” He says. Tidus grins again.

 “Still. And thanks for… other stuff, too.” He gestures vaguely. The boy doesn’t look too impressed. He has icy blue eyes, a shade or two lighter than Tidus’s, and locks of brown hair that falls messily around his sharp face but still manages to look okay. Some falls in his eyes and the boy brushes it away absent-mindedly.

 Tidus stands in the middle of the room. He isn’t sure what to do. One plate is obviously for him – but the boy isn’t moving either. Is it polite to just… start eating? Are they waiting for something? Tidus is just about to ask when the door to the other room, the one next to the kitchen, flings open.

 “Eggs!” Cries a voice, obviously thrilled. It sounds like the man has seen the heavens make peace with themselves.

 “Oh, son, you shouldn’t have.” The man comes in. His hair is darker than the boy’s, almost black, worn it in a ponytail. He is rubbing his palms together.

 “I didn’t – make them for you.” The boy rolls his eyes. He pulls out the chair and sits down. Apparently they _have_ been waiting for something – for the man. Tidus joins the man and the boy at the creaky table barely big enough for three plates. He is feeling slightly out of place.

 “Right,” the man squints. “Because… obviously, you’re having three plates by yourself.”

 “We have a guest.” The boy doesn’t miss a beat. “So behave yourself.”

 That is when the ponytailed man notices Tidus sitting awkwardly opposite of him. His eyes widen.

 “Oh, right! I knew I’d forgotten something… G-man sent you, right? T…Tyler?” The man ventures. Tidus laughs. The black-haired man’s energy is vigorous, like the sunny days he likes.

 “Tidus,” he corrects.

 “Sorry.” The man grins. “Old age. I’m Laguna Loire. This is my son…”

 “Squall Leonhart.” The boy says without glancing at his direction. Laguna gives Tidus a conspiratorial eye-roll and shakes his head. Tidus can’t help but smile.

 He’s noticed that the father and the son have different surnames, but doesn’t ask about it.

 “Thanks for… you know, agreeing to help me out.” Tidus says to Laguna. Laguna shakes his head, earnest affection all but pouring out of him.

 “No, no. We hunters gotta help each other, right?”

 “Right.” Tidus laughs. Although, the last time he checked, those _hunters_ , a whole lot of them, have been a pretty independent bunch. That’d be, selfish bastards. That is one of the reasons he’d left in he first place.

 When he looks up from his thoughts, Squall is looking at him. Tidus flinches, startled. Squall’s eyes seem like razors cutting into his deepest thoughts. Tidus thinks that he won’t be surprised if Squall can actually read minds with that look alone. Now that they are under the washed-out light bulbs, Tidus sees that Squall has a long scar between his eyes; it cuts diagonally across the bridge of his nose.

 “So, you’ve been out of touch for a while, huh?” Laguna’s voice brings him back. Tidus nods quickly.

 “Yeah, uh, I went to college, after the whole Apocalypse thing.”

 He smiles, remembering all his new friends who thought he was joking when he told them the same thing. And they still do.

 “Really? What’d you study?” Laguna asks.

 “Actually, um, I play football.”

 Squall looks up at that. Tidus can’t read his face.

 “Cool.” Laguna decides, grinning again. “So I take it you don’t know the latest?”

 “No, what?” Tidus puts the fork down on the empty plate. Squall and Laguna exchange a look. Maybe there has been another apocalypse… and Tidus didn’t know it. He always does feel a ping of guilt whenever his thoughts take him back to the life he’s left behind, the people he should have saved.

 “It’s the Angels. They fell.” Laguna says. Tidus takes a moment to process what he’s heard. Then something strikes.

 “Wait, the meteor shower…”

 “Exactly.” Laguna nods. He looks regretfully at the empty plate in front of him.

 “But… why? How? Who…” Tidus finds it difficult to form the words. When he left, _Angels_ were still the new thing. The hunters didn’t really known what to make of them. But who knows what happened after that? In those three, blissfully ignorant years? He’s been so _out_ , his life has been so normal for so long… and all this is making his head crack again.

 “Who do you _think_?” Squall murmurs. Laguna laughs a little.

 “My son doesn’t really like the Winchesters. I tell him, you don’t know them.”

 “And I don’t care.” Squall says and gets up with the plates.

 “I mean… they _did_ start the apocalypse.” Tidus says carefully. “But they tried to fix it.”

 Squall snorts, going into the kitchen. Laguna shrugs in that what-can-you-do way.

 “Hey, do I get dessert?” He calls, leaning back in his chair.

 “Get your own,” comes the reply.

 “Aww… don’t be like that, man. I know you love me.”

 Squall mutters something incomprehensible, but when he comes back out a minute later he is carrying two steaming cups of coffee. He puts one in front of Tidus and hands the other one to his father. Laguna grins maniacally.

 “He likes to pretend he doesn’t care.” He whispers to Tidus in a not quite whispering kind of voice. Squall rolls his eyes again.

 Tidus picks up the mug, and thanks Squall. The warmth spreads from his fingertips into his bones. The steam clouds his eyes as he takes a sip. All the while, Laguna is making a silly joke and Squall is doing his best not to smile. Tidus can see that it’s their pattern. The kind of ritual between people who are so comfortable with each other that they almost know every response they would get. Tidus doesn’t even know if they are really related – their last names are different, and they don’t even look much alike. But nonetheless, it is a nice family. It is a nice family that Tidus wishes he could have. A father and his son. Simple as that. Why can’t it be as simple as that? Why can’t the father love his son, just because he is his child? Why can’t the son love his father? Why does it have to be so complicated, Tidus doesn’t know. Caught between hatred and love, sometimes wondering if that is what it is or if it’s an obligation of love. Thinking, that there must be a tiny bit of love left in the very bottom of the bottle because they are family. Trying to think back to the good times and realizing that he can’t. Wondering if he really loves his old man at all, feeling terrible about it. And then he ran away.

 And now his father is missing. Tidus has set out to search for him, but he doesn’t know why. What is he doing this for? If he is honest with himself, this is more for himself than anyone else. Than his father. He just doesn’t want to feel guilty for not even trying. And so he is trying.

 He puts the mug down on the table and watches another father and another son. Squall has finally given in, shaking his head and smiling a little. They look good. They look happy. They even have a house. They are hunting – but it doesn’t look like Squall is here against his will.

 And Tidus can tell. This is going to be one of the bad days that he doesn’t have.

 

 Squall dons a worn-out leather jacket on himself and grabs a gun as he heads out for the door. Tidus compliments the jacket – it’s cool, after all, and nothing Tidus is ever going to wear. He would look like a pathetic seventh grader wanting to be an adult in that thing. Squall quirks his eyebrows like he’s looking at a foreign species. Then he nods, and Tidus isn’t sure if it is a _thanks_ or _whatever_ or _you’re weird._ Laguna makes an apology for his son after, but Tidus doesn’t really mind as he laughs along with Laguna. He’s already liking Squall. If only for the fact that he actually, authentically, _has_ a father.

 As they drive to Jecht Ardenhein’s cheap apartment on the street below the bridge, Laguna tells Tidus that he is a journalist. For a moment Tidus doesn’t know what to say.

 “A journalist?” He finally croaks out.

 “Yeah, I know. Pretty much what everyone says.” Laguna says easily. He checks his side mirror for the car blaring behind.

 “But… you’re a hunter, right? _And_ a journalist?” Tidus tries to conjoin the two images together, fails. He catches Squall smirking into his window in the passenger seat.

 “Oh, yeah. You’d be surprised how much those two things are alike.” Laguna says. Tidus can’t tell if he’s joking or not, so he settles with a simple, “oh.” Then he remembers something.

 “Oh! Actually… I knew I’d heard your name before! Yeah, that’s why it sounded so familiar…” He exclaims. Laguna looks positively ecstatic. Squall finally turns to Tidus, his eyes narrowed.

 “You don’t have to be so nice.”

 “No, I mean it! My girlfriend, she, uh, is into that whole reading and journalism thing. She mentioned you a couple of times.” Tidus says. His thoughts briefly flash back to Yuna. It occurs to him that she’d be wondering where he is – he hasn’t found a suitable explanation, and just left it at _family thing_. Tidus hopes he finds the old man quickly, so he can go back to school before the fall semester starts. Go back to her.

 “Hah!” Laguna roars triumphantly. His car makes a dangerous swerve. “I _told_ you, son – I’m not all that nobody!”

 Squall doesn’t say anything. It looks like he’s contemplating this new information, wondering what to do with it. Laguna meets Tidus’s eyes through the driver’s mirror and grins.

 “So you have a girlfriend, huh? Who’s the lucky girl?”

 “Her name is Yuna. She goes to college with me.” Tidus grins too. He can’t help but smile.

 “Does she know… about this?” Squall asks. Tidus doesn’t have to ask what _this_ is.

 “No. I didn’t tell her.” He answers, smile fading a little. It is the only gray spot in their relationship. The big _lie_ – about everything he is. Or, at least, was. Yuna knows that there is something he’s hiding, but doesn’t probe. She would never guess.

 Tidus needs a change of subject. He shifts the focus onto Squall.

 “How old are you, anyway?” It dawns on him that he knows barely anything about the boy. Laguna glances at Squall. Squall takes a moment to realize that Tidus is speaking to him.

 “Old enough.”

 “He’s eighteen.” Laguna tells Tidus. “He graduated this summer.”

 Tidus knows this is a dangerous territory, so he wonders if he should ask the next question – the question that is hanging in the air like a predator in hiding. Then, before he can make up his mind, Squall answers the unasked query.

 “I’m not going to college. There’s nothing to learn.”

 “Oh.” Tidus nods, for a lack of a better answer. He decides to change the topic. “So… you have a girlfriend?”

 When Squall answers, his voice is perfectly normal. No hesitation. Just stating the facts.

 “I did. She’s dead.”

 “I’m sorry.” Tidus is horrified at his conversation skills today. What is with it? The air gets heavier with unspoken memories slapping the particles all around them. Laguna doesn’t say anything, his mouth in a tight line. The only one who seems to be unaffected is Squall. He glances at Tidus through the mirror.

 “She was a hunter. Things happen to us. Death, happens to us.”

 Tidus just nods. He doesn’t know how Squall is so calm about it. He wishes he could see the thoughts behind the boy’s perfectly sculptured face, but doesn’t think he wants to, at the same time.

 They barely speak for the rest of the ride. Laguna is concentrating on something that is not the road in front of them, Squall just looks out the window and dozes off soon after – Tidus, he just sits awkwardly at the back seat and tries not to imagine Yuna’s death.

 

 “Nice home.” Laguna says as they enter Jecht’s apartment. He’s broken out of the silent spell, pretending to have forgotten the conversation back at the car. Tidus is glad for the shift of mood, that silence was suffocating the air out of him, but can’t quite agree with Laguna’s compliment. He thinks about echoing Squall’s sentiment; _you don’t have to be so nice._

“It’s a home.” He finally settles. Squall comes in a minute later, tosses the car key to Laguna and looks around. He frowns. Now _that_ , Tidus thinks, is more like it.

 Jecht’s home is cluttered, to say the least. It was messy back when Tidus lived in it, but seems to have gotten worse since he left. There is everything covering every surface of the house. There are thousands of books scattered on the floor, crammed in the shelves, stocked on the tables. There are takeout boxes on the kitchen counters and the rug is supposed to be white but isn’t. Tidus gets the urge to throw out everything and vacuum the whole place. The floor, the walls, the ceiling. Just to get rid of it all.

 “You lived here?” Squall asks.

 “I… it wasn’t this bad when I did.” Tidus makes an excuse, then scurries out of the way. He’s almost afraid to open the door to the old man’s bedroom, but knows he has to. Jecht does almost all of his work in his room. If there is a clue as to where he’s gone to, it is there. So he sucks in a breath and gingerly pushes the door open. A part of him wishes that he would find Jecht under the three pillows, two blankets and the cushions stacked on the bed.

 The bed is empty. The desk is not. Laguna can’t say _nice home_ this time, no matter how generous he’s feeling.

 They get to work quietly, shuffling through the endless papers on the desk and on the floor, looking for some kind of a clue. Laguna’s best guess is that Jecht has gone off to hunt something and got caught up in it – it is fairly common among hunters. Only a handful are in serious trouble, though. Hunters know what they are doing. Usually it’s just that they are in a slight bind – got lost in the woods, recovering from a hydra bite, can’t find a place to stash the vampire corpse. These days, it seems, they all call G-man. Then G-man locates a hunter in the vicinity and calls for help. Tidus can’t remember his real name – but it’s a nice system. It used to be Bobby Singer that did the job, but Tidus isn’t sure what happened to him. He’s been out of touch. He only knows G-man because he contacted Tidus a couple months ago, explaining the system and telling him to call him if ever he needs help. Tidus had nodded sure, not realizing how soon that would be.

 “I think I might have something.” Laguna says. Tidus breaks off from his thoughts and goes over to him. Squall just looks up from where he’s sitting on the floor, quickly organizing the papers into piles in front of him.

 “Looks like your dad has done a _lot_ of research on… well, everything, but especially this.” Laguna hands Tidus an old notebook that he recognizes as his father’s. Tidus tries to read the old man’s terrible handwriting. Then he reads it again, because he doesn’t think he’s got it right.

 “ _Angels_?” He says, finally. Laguna nods.

 Tidus doesn’t know what to think. He’s hunted a lot of monsters in his time, but he is just not familiar with Angels. He isn’t even sure if they _are_ monsters, though he’s heard some accounts. There is still a part of him that thinks of small boys with little wings and mischievous stares in Raffaello’s painting. Squall, on the other hand, looks tired. His expression says _not again._

 “The only Angels I know are Raphael, Gabriel, Michael…” Tidus racks his brain. “And Castiel,” he adds. He’s never met the infamous Fallen before, only heard that he helped stop the Apocalypse by rebelling against heaven. He would never admit it, but Tidus secretly admires the Angel rebel. To go against everything he has been taught to believe, for so many years. It is one of the reasons Tidus couldleave his father and go his own way.

 “The first three are dead. Or as good as.” Squall informs Tidus matter-of-factly. Tidus does a double-take, not even trying to hide his hideous ignorance.

 “You can _kill_ Angels?” He asks. The room is quiet for a moment.

 “Boy, you’ve really… been _out._ ” Laguna finally says. Tidus nods ruefully. “Well, it’s not easy, but it can be done.”

 “What could possibly kill an Angel? Can you like… exorcise it back to Heaven? Like with Demons?” Tidus remembers something else. “Or… the colt! Could it kill an Angel?”

 “Uh, neither.” Laguna answers, and it looks like he’s rather enjoying himself. “They’re tough sons of bitches, excuse my language, and only one thing can kill them – as far as we know. Angel Swords.”

 “Huh,” Tidus contemplates this foreign concept. “I guess… you wouldn’t happen to have it in your trunk, yeah?”

 “No such luck.” Laguna laughs, thinking Tidus is joking when he is at least half-serious.

 “So, if my dad… is hunting an Angel, what would he… does _he_ have an Angel Sword?” Tidus frowns. _Hunting an Angel_ just sounds wrong. Sometimes, Tidus hates his job for crushing the magic in the world. Yuna secretly believes in Angels, the good kinds that smiles and whispers _let it be,_ and Tidus hopes she never learns the truth.

 “Highly doubt it.” Laguna says. “Then again, you don’t normally go _hunt_ an Angel. No one in their right mind would, you know?”

 Squall snorts at that.

 “Yeah, we get out of the way.” He supplements, and Tidus can’t help but notice the bitterness in his voice. He guesses it has something to do with the Winchesters and their Angel.

 “Well,” Tidus sighs. “I don’t know then. I mean, it’s not like he’d research the Angels out of… intellectual curiosity. It has to have something to do with the situation he’s in.” _Whatever it is_ , he adds silently. His imagination is taking him to a darker alley by the second.

 “We’ll figure it out, son.” Laguna says, patting Tidus on his shoulders.

 And Tidus knows that he didn’t mean anything much by the little word added to the end of the sentence there, but he can’t help but feel a silent lump rising at his throat. He catches himself thinking _what if_ , hesitates, then lets his mind run wild for a minute. _What if he was my father instead?_ Then he has to shut it down, because it makes him guilty. It’s sweet. Painfully sweet and never going to happen. He feels guilty because he wants it, so much.

 Laguna doesn’t realize what’s going on inside Tidus’s head. He resumes his search.

 Tidus leafs through all the stuff on his father’s desk. They don’t tell him much, besides how messed-up Jecht is. He’s always been a mess, Tidus recalls, as he picks up yet another empty bottle of whiskey and throws it on the bed along with all the others. Laguna glances at him but doesn’t say anything. It vaguely occurs to Tidus that Jecht is going to be so mad when he finds out that his son has brought strangers into his bedroom, his private sanctum, and let them rummage through his stuff. He is going to throw a fit. Tidus thinks about that, then shrugs. Whatever. More time pass in frustrated silence.

 “Think I got something.” Squall says, and Tidus runs over to him in a second.

 “Please. About time,” he murmurs. Laguna leans over from the top of the bed, where he’s been sitting.

 “What is it, son?” Laguna asks lazily. Squall indicates to the seven piles of papers in front of him.

 “I’ve been organizing these prints. By date.”

 “Date?” Tidus takes a closer look. All he sees at first is the titles, the texts in different languages, and some depiction of angels as Tidus used to imagine them – and then some. He stares at an especially gruesome drawing of Michael, the Arc Angel.

 “The top left corner.” Squall indicates. Tidus follows, and spots a date. _13.5.27_.

 “It’s the date the page was printed.” Squall explains.

 “And…?” Laguna cocks his head. But he is smiling, like he already knows what his son is going to say. Squall carries on.

 “And, since you said he might be chasing an Angel, or Angels, I sorted through the pages related to Angels. They go like, 27th, 28th, 29th… then stop at the 31st.” Squall picks up the last of the piles. Tidus is just listening with his mouth slightly hanging open.

 “That’s last week? Three… four days ago.” Laguna says, and Squall nods.

 “Only, they don’t just stop. They _get_ stopped. If you look at the last page, it ends with _their_ and there’s no next page. Looks like the printer is on, and the laptop must’ve been turned on too before the batteries died out – the battery light is flickering.” Squall says all this with the calmness of a weather reporter. It’s almost like he’s memorized it out of a script.

 “There is no more clean A4 paper left in this room. I don’t see his wallet but I bet that’s his handgun,” he points to the discarded gun sitting on the desk. Tidus nods numbly.

 “Yeah… yeah, the old man never goes on a hunt without… that.” He can’t believe how he’s missed it before.

 “Okay, so, he’s not on a hunt. He’s not out to buy _beer_ , there’s plenty already, so he must have gone out for more papers.”

 “Papers?” Tidus almost laughs out loud at how mundane it sounds. Of all the things to go missing for. Squall doesn’t understand the expression on his face. “What’s so funny?”

 “No, nothing. Nothing… Thanks, Squall. Great job. I guess we’ll go around asking the local stationary stores.” The laughter escapes him then, albeit a weak, defeated one. Squall frowns but Tidus catches Laguna snickering too.

 

 Tidus tells Squall that he’s really smart – he doesn’t ever remember his investigations being that graceful, eighteen or not. Squall shifts uncomfortably in his seat at the compliment. Laguna is welled up with so much pride that he almost gets them killed by crashing into the side fence. Tidus grips the seat, Squall hisses dangerously and Laguna just laughs. He tells Squall that he could do so much if he goes to college, whatever he wants, but Squall doesn’t answer.

 Tidus watches all this while they’re driving to the stationary stores around the town, while they ask the owners about Jecht and showing his picture – the only one Tidus has, and only because mom looks so blissfully happy there – and while they stop at a diner to grab something to eat. Laguna jokes around, laughs easily. Squall doesn’t crack all that often, snaps at the man like he was a younger brother instead of a father, but they look good. Tidus catches himself aching with jealously and is appalled. He thinks he should be above and beyond and behind that by now. All those years.

 “Argh!” Laguna is enthusiastic with his burger and knocks over a ketchup bottle. Tidus watches it fall and reacts automatically. He plays football – he cannot bear to see things falling to the ground. He sticks out his hand and the bottle settles nicely in his palm. All of this takes less than three seconds.

 When he resurfaces from under the table, Squall and Laguna are looking at him.

 “Nice reflex.” Squall says, quirking his eyebrow. There is a small smile hanging by his lips and Tidus grins too.

 “Yeah, yeah. Very nice. Very nice.” Laguna shakes his head, laughs a little. He reaches over and pats Tidus on the shoulder. “Good catch.”

 Tidus thinks he is more pleased than he should be. It’s a simple catch and a simple compliment – only, now he can’t think one time when Jecht has complimented his son. He could behead a vamp and save the old man’s hide and all he would get is a grunt. Maybe. Tidus returns the smile and goes back to his food.

 

 “ _Why can’t you ever be okay with who I am?”_

_“Because I’m not.”_

_“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not good enough for you? Is that it?”_

_“Because…”_

The luck is on their side on the fourth shop they visit. It’s a big city, but fortunately the owner remembers the guy with impressive scars all over. He squints at the picture Tidus holds out to him, then nods.

 “Yep, this is the guy. Older, though. And his cheeks were shallower. But the same guy.”

 “So this was about four days ago, right? On a Friday.” Squall asks. He looks impressively impassive in a white shirt, minus the leather jacket. Somehow with all his hair and the scar across his face and his bracelets, he still manages to look authentic. The owner nods.

 “Yeah, I guess…”

 “And, uh, was there anything odd about this guy? Also, when did he leave?” Laguna takes out a small notebook and a pen. Tidus notes that he still looks more like a journalist than a cop, but he’s probably looking worse so he keeps his mouth shut. With his hay-golden hair and the tan, the suit tends to become useless. He just stands in the corner.

 The man snorts. “ _Everything_ about this guy was odd. He had… different color socks and… and I think he was drunk a little bit. He was on the phone,” he imitates holding a cell phone. “And kept goin’ on and on about _Angels_. He was talking about… um,” the man looks around cautiously, then up to where he must think heaven is, then whispers softly. “ … _Killing_ Angels, Lord forgive him.”

 Squall almost breaks character by snorting then, but Laguna jabs him in the side and the boy manages to cover it with a cough.

 “You hear who’s on the line?” Squall asks. The man shakes his head no.

 “No, sir, too loud in ‘ere with all the copying machines.”

 Tidus thinks it’s funny that the man is calling Squall _sir,_ when he’s probably more than twice his age.

 “All right, thanks. And when did he leave, again?” Laguna asks.

 “I don’t… remember. He was with this man, though.”

 “What man?” Tidus finally speaks up. The man startles a little, like he’s forgotten Tidus standing there.

 “Uh, I dunno. He was tall. The man comes in and… and that scar-guy sort of stops and stares.”

 “Did the tall man take him? The scar-guy?” Tidus asks. Suddenly he has these terrible thoughts and can’t decide if he’s frightened yet.

 “No, they just walked out, but they were both real quiet. And, oh, he didn’t take the papers.”

 Squall and Laguna exchange looks.

 “We’re gonna have to see your security camera, sir.” Squall says, in his most official voice.

Nobody recognizes the tall man in the screen. He’s maybe six feet three, four, brown hair and brown eyes. There’s nothing really special about him. Tidus sees Jecht hanging up his phone, then walking to the man. They both walk through the aisle quietly. Their lips don’t move. As far as Tidus can tell, the man isn’t holding a gun or anything. They walk out of the scene soon after.

 “Now what?” Laguna mutters. Tidus doesn’t know. His only thought is how his father looks thinner than the last time he’s seen him – three years ago. Probably from unhealthy, unbalanced diet and erratic life patterns. Hunting, life in general. Tidus wonders if he cares, then feels terrible about it. Really, he thinks he should be a better person than this. A better son.

 

  _“Am I not good enough as your son?”_

_“Boy,” his father laughs, sour. “Took the words right outta my mouth.”_

_The words hang there, bitter and desolate like winter droughts and they seep into the wind around them. Jecht twitches as the silence pulls them down, realizing he’s said something maybe he shouldn’t have – but Tidus is already gone. He doesn’t wait for his father to call him, because he will never. Sure, he probably hasn’t meant to sound so harsh, but doesn’t mean it’s true. Doesn’t mean Tidus has known all his life. He clutches the college application letter in his palm. I’ll show you, he thinks, I’ll show you, old man. I don’t need your approval._

_Who needs a family, anyway._


	2. Your Half-Truths

Chapter Two, Your Half-Truths

 

 They decide to take a look at the traffic cams installed in front of the store, the street, basically all about. That requires some serious lying to the cops in the nearest department, who are being especially perfunctory today and require them to file a report and everything. Well, just this young girl at the desk who is wearing an ironed uniform, obviously new and stiff as she can be. Squall is frustrated, but won’t let it show. He lifts his eyebrows at Laguna, and Laguna pulls Tidus back. They take a few steps back, in a non-threatening distance.

 “What?” Tidus asks, confused. Laguna just grins cheekily. Tidus watches Squall turn his back to them, leaning in a little and supporting himself with his arms on the desk. He can’t see his face. Only the girl’s – and, surprisingly, her stern face breaks into a smile a minute later. Tidus lets out a low whistle.

 “Workin’ some magic, huh?”

 “My son has these effects on people.” Laguna says, and he’s probably more proud than he should be for a father witnessing his son flirting his way to illegal security access. Tidus grins, though. Because he would never be able to do what Squall did without majorly embarrassing himself, and because Laguna looks so stoked.

 Laguna’s smile fades when they finally take a look at the security footage.

 Tidus thought they would need to go through several cameras as they tracked the mystery man and Jecht, but things take a turn on the very first one they watch. It’s the one right outside the stationary store. They come out of the store, and it isn’t like the guy is holding a gun to Jecht’s side or anything but Tidus can tell his father is being walked against his will. Jecht walks calm, though, and they stop for a second to cross the street. The guy watches the cars, rushing from one side of the road to other. Tidus almost thinks Jecht is going to make his move right there, but he doesn’t. His posture isn’t even tense – _battle mode_ , Jecht used to call them – but slouched slightly against the street lamp. They finally cross the street, together, but still nothing happens. Tidus watches the small pixilated shape of his father jerking his thumb at one of the cars parked on the street. Tidus recognizes the navy pickup truck as Jecht’s. The guy walks slowly over to the car, saying something but there is no audio. There are not many people on the streets and that’s when it happens, Jecht moves so fast the screen gets all blurry, but he tears the side mirror from his side, slams his hand on it and the entire screen goes static. Tidus takes in everything, dumbfounded. The next thing they see is the navy truck rolling away on the road. The tall guy is nowhere to be seen.

 “What…” Tidus starts to speak, but Squall holds out a finger to him. The pretty girl from the main desk is still lurking in the corner, watching them wearily. Tidus gulps down the million questions that spring to his mind. Squall’s fingers move fast on the keyboard and he brings up another image, the camera installed in front of another building. They see the truck blow past the road. It is not the direction of their house.

 Squall runs them through several cameras like this, until in one where Jecht steps out of the truck, gathers a duffel bag from the passenger seat and disappears into the alleyway. There are no cameras there.

 Tidus opens his mouth as soon as they are safely out of the police station.

 “Okay, what was that? What happened?”

 “The guy. He was an Angel.” Laguna grunts as he opens the door to his car. Tidus gets in quickly. “An Angel?”

 He’s never actually seen an Angel. He’s heard that they take human vessels, or whatever, but he’s still imagined something… more.

 “So how did Je… I mean, my dad, get rid of it?”

 “Angel repellent.” Squall answers evenly. “It’s a Sigil, drawn with blood. It sends Angels far away – at least temporarily.”

 “Cool,” is all Tidus can manage. His thoughts become distracted as he realizes he’s been so out of touch with the hunting world, he might’ve just gotten himself killed in the next hunt. He gets all the way to making a mental note to secretly leaf through Jecht’s journals and researches, before he realizes something else too. There _is_ no next hunt. He’s done. As soon as they find Jecht in one piece, he is going back to college and Yuna.

 The thought is freeing and frightening at the same time. Tidus shakes it off.

 

 The sun is starting to slide down the top when they reach the abandoned truck in the abandoned lot. There are weeds and trash littered about, a broken lamp, but nothing else. The road is empty and the surrounding brick walls and alleys are empty, too. It’s almost like witnessing the aftermath of civilization. Tidus gets out of Laguna’s car and walks quickly over to the truck. It’s exactly as he remembers, minus a side mirror. And, as he peers inside, the passenger seat is stuffed full with empty wrappings, takeout coffee cups, books and lots of paper. A gun. It’s where Tidus used to sit. He feels a twinge of emotion that he doesn’t know the name of.

 Laguna is peering at the alleyway where Jecht disappeared to. “Doesn’t look like we can track him here. It’s… it goes in different ways.” He mimics a weaving motion with his hands.

 “Yeah, and it was days ago. Who knows where he is now.” Tidus murmurs. Squall is on the other side of the truck. He’s unlocked the car door and is searching the driver’s seat. He picks up something.

 “Found something.” He says. Laguna turns immediately, almost before Squall opens his mouth. “Great,” he grins even before Squall shows him what he’s found.

 “A cell phone.” Squall holds it out for Tidus. It’s the old flipping type of phone, now out of date but Jecht has always said that those new phones gave him a headache. Tidus flips it open and his own face is staring at him. Tidus put his picture in the background, the one taken on his graduation day, for Jecht when he bought the phone. Jecht grunted and muttered something wise-ass but looks like he’s kept it anyway. Probably doesn’t know how to change it – Tidus thinks as he shuts the phone again.

 “Yeah, it’s his.”

 “He left his phone? And he could’ve come back for it…” Laguna muses.

 “Why would someone leave their phone?” Tidus asks.

 “He might not need _this_ one.” Laguna says. Tidus shakes his head.

 “No, he wasn’t into that multiple-phone thing. Nobody contacted him anyway… I mean, not personally.” Tidus clarifies. “So this was his only one.”

 “He doesn’t want to be tracked down, then.” Squall decides. Tidus just looks at him. It takes a while for his rusty brain to catch up to the abnormality of everything he’s facing now. Again. Where a forgotten phone is not simply forgotten – its owner is hiding. Running away from Angels.

 “Wonder what he did to piss it… him… off.” Tidus mutters darkly.

 “What? The Angel? Who knows.” Laguna does an exaggerated face twist, to lighten the mood, but it’s sagging fast with the sun. Tidus thinks it’s finally time for him to get worried. His dad is being chased by Angels, and in hiding.

 He waits for the feeling to come.

 When nothing happens, Tidus decides that he’s too tired today. He’ll probably feel more worried tomorrow, he consoles, when he’s thinking straight again.

 But he thinks he fakes it rather nicely when Laguna tells him, “It’ll be okay, we’ll find him and lend him a hand,” and Tidus gives him a tight-lipped nod without saying anything.

 They stay there for a moment longer. Tidus wanders into the alley, just in case. It’s narrow and dark. Humidity of the impending summer is trapped near the ground, here. Tidus sees it splits up in three separate ways further out. The walls have scratches and drawings on them, and his gaze flash over them. One of them looks vaguely familiar – maybe he’s learned it in his symbolism class or something. There’s a circle in the middle that could be a head, and two scratches spread from it like broken wings. It looks like an Angel, he thinks. At least how he imagined it before.

 “Hey, Tidus,” Laguna calls. “It’s gettin’ dark. Let’s get back, and we’ll continue tomorrow.”

 “Yeah.” Tidus says, tearing his gaze from the weird drawing and heads back to the car.

 Tidus withdraws into himself as they drive back in silence. It’s not because of worry, not exactly – the lack of it, and the guilt. Only Laguna can see the world through his warmth and see pain and grief there. He tosses a few words of consolation, glancing back at Tidus from time to time. Squall remains silent. Tidus finds the silence more comforting than the words, though. It’s getting harder to squeeze out the last drops of the lie – the caring son, the worried son.

 A phone rings. Laguna glances at the caller ID, frowns, and presses the button. “Hello?”

 He listens for a minute. Squall is eying his father, a slight frown fleeting across his face. Laguna hangs up without another word and throws the phone down, practically slams it onto the seat between him and Squall. The car swerves dangerously.

 “What… who is it?” Squall picks up the abandoned phone.

 “It’s, ah, a friend.” Laguna answers vaguely. Tidus can’t see his face but his hands are shaking a little, even as he’s clutching the steering wheel tightly.

 “I need to…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. Tidus shifts in his seat, nervous of the sudden mood change.

 “Is everything okay?” He feels stupid asking, but he has to. Laguna doesn’t answer. In the mirror, his dark eyes are shaking like his hands.

 “Pull over.” Squall says, almost like an order. Laguna shoots a short glance at his son, but pulls over to the side. A couple of cars swoosh past them on the highway, then the road is empty again. Squall hands the phone back to Laguna. Then he turns to Tidus, unexpectedly. “Come on,” he says, “let’s get out.”

 “Huh?” Tidus asks, lost, but Squall is already halfway out of the car so Tidus follows him and shuts the door behind himself. Squall leans in and says something to Laguna that Tidus can’t quite make out. It looks like Laguna might be arguing, but Squall has a stern look on his face. Barely a muscle moves as he speaks, eyes fixed.

 A minute later, the driver’s window rolls down.

 “Listen, Tidus, I know I promised to help you…” Laguna says. “But something came up and I gotta go… help somebody.”

 “I hope everything’s okay.” Tidus says, sincerely. “And don’t worry about me. You’ve done more than enough already… both of you. Thanks.”

 “Still…” Laguna looks pained, as if breaking a promise actually hurts him physically.

 “Tidus and I can handle it. Go, already.” Squall taps his fingers on the hood of the car, impatient. Laguna sighs, but nods.

 “Good luck finding your dad, Tidus.” He leaves with those words hanging in the air. Tidus watches the silver car drive away. He glances at Squall, who is not exactly staring at the road, more at the ghost shadow of a car that’s disappeared. Tidus clears his throat when the dusty silence lengthens.

 “A friend in need?” He asks, carefully. For all of two seconds, Squall actually looks startled to find Tidus standing there.

 “You could say.” Squall answers. “It was my mom.”

 “Oh,” Tidus honestly cannot think of a suitable thing to say to that, without being intrusive. He just stares. He doesn’t know why he’s assumed that Squall’s mother was dead. Maybe because he doesn’t have one.

 “It’s complicated. My family is pretty damn… complicated.” Squall mutters as he keeps on staring out at the empty road. For the first time since Tidus has seen him, Squall looks a little tired. Tidus licks his lip as the moment stretches.

 “Sorry to hear.” He settles on that. Squall just looks at him like he’s lost his wits.

 Silence follows them like a lost puppy as they walk the remaining distance to the apartment.

 

 After dinner – silent, no surprise there – Squall clears the plates and sits back down at the table with some papers. Tidus realizes they’re from Jecht’s journal, and the strewn research he had lying around.

 “You took those?” Tidus asked, more out of surprise than anything else. He’s been raised into it – you touch my stuff, boy, you die. Even after he got old enough to know that Jecht wouldn’t actually stab him with a knife or anything, the fear stuck. Squall briefly glances up and meets Tidus’s eyes.

 “Yeah.” He says, simply, and goes back to reading.

 “Okay.” Tidus says, slightly embarrassed but covering it up with a grin. He sits down in front of Squall. “So… what’d you expect to find there, anyway?”

 “I don’t know. Something.” Squall replies. Tidus nods.

 “You know, you’re really good at this stuff.” He tells Squall with conviction. Tidus is better at the actual running around, torching a wendigo or shoving a silver knife inside a shapeshifter kinds of things.

 Squall raises his eyebrows. “I know,” he says, and Tidus laughs. It’s the way he says it, like earth orbits the sun, and the little smirk at the end that Tidus almost misses. Almost, but it’s there.

 The laughter dies and there it is again, the silence that settles on them like a blanket of snow early December. Tidus has never been too comfortable with silence – it’s his own heartbeats, and the way they remind him of finite, ending, fragile things. He likes to delude himself into immortality.

 Only, now, the silent rustle of paper in the stillness is oddly comforting. Tidus tries to help with whatever Squall is doing, but ends up listening to silence again. There is a clock ticking on the opposite wall. A vintage wall clock that has an owl perched on top. it reads ten twenty-five. Tidus stifles a yawn, as Squall continues his search. The crunch of papers.

 The minute hand ticks, one, now it’s ten twenty-six.

 And then,

 Squall startles and almost knocks the little table over. It’s Tidus’s phone, ringing at full volume. Tidus is startled out of his silent reverie as well, and he mutters a flurried apology to Squall and fumbles for his phone in his pocket.

 “Jesus,” Squall rolls his eyes. Tidus almost falls backward in his seat as he snatches the phone up. He doesn’t check the caller ID as he presses the button to cut out the noise.

 “Hello? Yeah?” He stumbles over his words, and there is a short silence. Then, just as Tidus is about to ask again, a soft voice carries through the line and cuts through his core, just like that. It always does.

 “ _Hey.”_

 “Yuna,” Tidus gets up and walks a few steps away from the table. Squall is eying him curiously.

  _“Yeah, uh,”_ she laughs a little. _“Of course it’s me.”_

 Tidus is grinning, about to say something that Squall would probably scoff at, but something is off. It’s her voice, her tone, the little laugh, what she said – he doesn’t really know. Only that something is different. He frowns.

 “Hey, are you… is everything alright?” He turns away from Squall.

 _“Yeah… no. I don’t know.”_ Yuna draws in a deep breath and Tidus can see the delicate line between her brows in his mind.

 “Yuna, what’s goin’ on?”

  _“Where are you now?”_ Yuna asks, lightly, but there is something forced about it. The question is sudden, and Tidus fumbles for another half-truth, half-lie that is his life.

 “I… uh, I’m with my dad? In New York. I kinda promised him I’d spend the summer… uh, so, anyway. Why do you ask?”

 Tidus hates his lies. But telling her that he’s looking for his missing dad would result in awkward questions. Like, why don’t you just call the cops and let them deal with it? He doesn’t have a good answer for that.

  _“Uh-huh.”_ Yuna sounds unconvinced, and now something is definitely off. Tidus feels his heartbeats quicken. He grips the phone tightly, as if that will save him. Yuna’s voice sounds far-off, like an echo of the real thing.

  _“Shame I’ll never get to meet him,”_ she says.

 “You can… if you want to, but, I don’t think…” Tidus doesn’t even want to imagine Yuna and Jecht in the same room.

  _“No, Tidus, I mean,”_ Yuna sucks in a breath, like she’s about to deliver the ultimate death sentence. _“I mean, I won’t get to meet him ‘cause I won’t have a reason to. Because I’m ending this, tonight.”_

 Her voice carries through the line and burns his skin like it’s silver, and he’s a wraith. He sees ugly, raw skin underneath the burn. For a moment he can’t think of what to say, because it takes all of him to remain standing as the world dances mockery for him.

 “Wh…” he croaks out, “why?”

 A part of him is thinking this must be a joke, because there’s no reason. Nothing he can think of. Then she says,

  _“I was over at your place today, you know, I thought I left something there.”_

 Tidus doesn’t know what to say. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. Yuna continues.

_“And… it was so messy, I thought I’d surprise you. And then I found… some stuff.”_

 Tidus racks his brain trying to remember. Remember what piece of his darkness he’s left astray, damn it. He can’t think of any but he must have. An old journal, something. He should’ve been more careful. He shouldn’t have let his guard down like that.

 “Yuna, please. Let me explain,” Tidus sputters but he knows he can’t. He can’t understand how this could be happening. Now, of all?

 _“Tidus… look, you need to get help. I mean, rationally speaking.”_ Yuna’s voice is soft, and laced with fear, concern, grief. There’s that one word, though, and Tidus clings to it like a lifeline.

 “Rationally?”

  _“None of… that… can be real. Rationally.”_ Yuna says. “ _But irrationally speaking, maybe that crap_ is _real, I don’t know.”_

“I know you won’t believe me, but…”

  _“It doesn’t change anything, though.”_ Yuna says, in a tired voice. _“Either way, you’ve been doing nothing but lie to me.”_

It sounds so cruel, not like the soft laughs and crinkled smiles he knows – but it’s the truth. Because it’s true, Tidus stands there and mouths the words he wants to say. He doesn’t know what he wants to say, except,

  _“So, I’m sorry, Tidus. I just… I wanted us to be… And I can’t,”_ Yuna’s voice wobble for the first time. _“Don’t bother coming. I need some time alone.”_

 Tidus just breathes. Even that feels like too much, a sense overload.

  _“Goodbye.”_

She hangs up. Without really knowing why, Tidus glances at the wall clock. The owl stares at him, the hands read then thirty-five.

 He can’t believe that he’s been perfectly at peace just ten minutes ago. He remembers Squall is still sitting there. He can’t,

 “I need some air.” Tidus manages a murmur and walks out the door. He presses the elevator button but takes the stairs. He feels numb. And he hears his father, first time in a long time, that mocking sneer and those dismissive hands.

  _You can’t do anything._

 Tidus has an answer to that, he thinks, but he’s too tired to fight. So when the half-imagined, half-remembered Jecht snorts again, he says nothing to contradict him.

  _You’ve messed up again, boy. It’s just what you do._

In the absence of his denial, the words bury into his skull with glee. Then deeper – he feels them scratching at his ribs. Gets to the heart. He feels the veins rip.

 

 Tidus doesn’t actually realize where he’s walking to, everything makes no sense at all and Jecht and his sneer are still there in the corner of his eyes. There, in the dark brick on the wall. There, behind a broken streetlamp that flickers before sparks fly and it dies. Tidus thinks he should be worried about that, flickering lights could mean something evil – but he isn’t. He keeps walking to clear his head and he can only think –

 He stops just in time. Blinks and stares at the lumpy darkness in front of him. A wall, maybe three inches away from his nose.

 He uses the short lapse in his mind-chatter, one induced by slight shock, to take in his surrounding. Where the hell did he walk to, anyway? He hears nothing but a scratch of wind against a dead-end. The way it bounces and rushes back. The smell of the alley with all its empty beer bottles and stripped fish bones – anchovy, rotting away here, so far away from their home.

 Tidus looks up and sees walls, and the sky above it. The moon is barely out. The clouds are attacking it tonight, clawing at it. It doesn’t scare him that he’s in the darkest corner of the city, alone, at night. No, it scares him that he doesn’t really remember coming here. He looks down at his undone shoelaces and tries to recall the last – a glance at his watch – thirty minutes. All he gets are jumbled up hallucinations of Jecht, Yuna, Jecht and Yuna. Jecht tells him boy, you’re useless, and Yuna looks at him, I don’t get you anymore. You lied to me. You’re crazy. You…

 And the really crazy thing, Tidus thinks, is that he can recall every muscle on her face, her odd-eyes that change color under different lights and count the freckles in them. Except she isn’t here. He is imagining her. What she actually said was,

 Yeah, basically the same thing.

 Tidus realizes he’s slid down against the wall. He finds himself staring at the opposite one. His eyes trail down, falls on the protruding bricks, and further. He spots something, at the very bottom.

 His thoughts are disconnected like someone’s torn the pages and dropped the whole bunch on the floor – it takes a while for him to recognize it. A circle… two scratches, that could be wings, or… or?

 Tidus cocks his head. His mind is scratching at something but he can’t tell what it is. Jecht sneers again, by the empty trashcan on his right, but only pale moonlight crawls when he turns his head to look.

 He slowly looks back at the drawing again. Frowns. It looks like someone’s carved it into the stone with a coin. Or a switchblade. He doesn’t know why he thought of that.

  _You’ve been lying to me._

“I’m sorry.” Tidus turns his head, left, but of course she’s not there. In his mind he sees her wearing the white silk dress that ripples like a melody. It’s the dress she wore that day, when he saw her at a late summer pool party and fell in love. Their eyes met, Tidus smiled, and she did too, because she knew. She had the oddest, most beautiful eyes, one green and the other one blue.

 Images of that party, of Yuna, of humid summer air and champagne that sparkled, float through his mind in rapid snapshots. His breaths come in quick, go out even quicker. He feels dizzy. Jecht studies him on his right, Yuna shakes her head on his left. Each time he tires to concentrate on the drawing in front of him, the nausea gets worse. It’s not just the party, now. Every memory comes pouring out from wherever they’d been hiding in his head, and they all dance around too fast. It’s like, he tires, but he doesn’t know what it’s like.

 Tidus closes his eyes. That only makes it worse, the images are unbelievably vivid. It’s scaring him. His heartbeats drum in his ears. His breaths are too shallow. It’s like, yeah, he’s actually, literally, drowning in his memories.

  _What the hell?_ He thinks, red panic coloring his dark vision. He can’t keep them open, can’t keep them closed. For a moment, forever, he thinks he’s going to die there. In the back alley where his father disappeared to, sitting among homeless anchovies and – isn’t that great, died from what? Memories? What the hell. All the vengeful spirits he’s burned, monsters he’s shot dead. And now… Doesn’t make much sense, yet that is how it’s happening.

 Tidus cracks open his eyes. He doesn’t have a good reason for it – especially since vision does nothing for the gut-wrenching dance the world’s putting on. But he does. He finds he’s been clutching his head. His eyes fall on his wrist, on the black leather watch Yuna got for him last year. Reads, one thirty.

 That stops him. Tidus closes his eyes and opens them again. No, he didn’t read it wrong. The hands definitely say one thirty, only he doesn’t know how that’s possible.

 He stares at the watch. Another memory, the one in which Yuna holds out the little box with a straight face, enjoys the look on his face when he fishes out the watch. Cracks into a brilliant smile then, her delicate fingers taking the leather strap from him. _Here, let me put it on you._ Fingers. The softness of them as they brush Tidus’s wrist, lingering a moment and the sweet warmth is almost too much to bear. Fingers – not wings. Fingers. Claws.

 Tidus lets out a breath and everything falls with it. The feverish frenzy, the colors that are too vivid, hallucinations that are too real.

 He hears the wind again, leaving the alley. His breaths slowly come back to normal. Tidus sits there a moment longer, wondering what’s just happened.

 Oh, god. Did he just have a panic attack?

 Yeah, it’s scary. Embarrassing as hell, as it is, too – he thinks he should be stronger than that. It just shouldn’t be happening to him.

 But, well. Thankfully no one was around to see it. Tidus lets out a sigh. He stares at the drawing that he now recognizes. Crude circle for a body, two long fingers – claws – that could scoop a man’s eyeballs out with surgical precision. It is a rudimentary, yes, but honest depiction of the Braxton Flatwoods monster.

 He knows this, because it’s him that drew it. Carved it out with a switchblade. He couldn’t have been more than eight, nine, when he did it. No, definitely nine years old. Young, still eager to please his daddy. It was a mighty hard task, and at nine he still hadn’t known the truth. By ten, though, he had figured it out. The truth. It wasn’t hard. Simply impossible.

 But at nine he’d still been trying to fill the hole. Tidus remembers himself, suddenly, crouched in front of the wall, sweat dripping and tasting salty in his mouth, carving away relentlessly. He’d seen the symbol at the crime scene. Jecht had taken his son, but had kept him hidden in the car. FBI didn’t hire nine-year-old boys. Tidus had seen, anyway, the body and the symbol that was carved on it. It had baffled the cops. It had baffled dad. Dad, unsure? Tidus remembers being excited by it. He remembers deciding that he is going to figure it out – what it is, and maybe, just maybe, dad would be impressed. He’d snuck out to the back alley, carved the symbol on stone before he forgot. Was gonna go to the library later. It hadn’t worked out, of course. Tidus _had_ found out that it was a symbol for Braxton Flatwoods monster, said it to himself a hundred times not to forget, but his dad had just been furious for sneaking a peek at the crime scene. The next day, he turned ten and his dad forgot his birthday.

 Tidus also remembers one other thing. The smell of salt everywhere. Tangled in his hair, settled in his clothes like dust, seeped into his skin like water. Not only because it’d been summer. Because the walls had been coated with salt. The walls of the bunker.

 Tidus gets up slowly. He’s been sitting against the hard brick wall longer than he remembers, and his back screams like he’s an old man. He ignores the pain and pats his pocket, and the phone is still there.

 Tidus is almost absolutely sure that Jecht is there right now. Hiding from an Angel, he’d need a bunker like that. Maybe Jecht wasn’t thinking straight, but more likely, didn’t think Tidus would remember that. He doesn’t remember the bunker after that summer.

 He listens to the phone ring twice before he remembers the time. One forty. Squall is probably asleep. Tidus shuts the phone quickly. He has a feeling, a groggy Squall isn’t something he wants to risk.

 Tidus holds the phone, not sure of what to do. He’s almost sure that Jecht will still be there in the morning, and _knows_ that groggy Jecht is hell. His father can wait another damn day.

 Tidus walks out into the clearing, glad to be out of anchovy smells. Jecht’s truck is still there. Tidus stares at it for a while, considering. He doesn’t have the key but doesn’t need it anyway.

 What to do, now? He wonders. He thinks about the other kids. Those ones with moms, dads, childhoods. Then his – switchblade at seven, gun at ten. Learning to sew up wounds and pluck out bullets before learning to cook a proper meal. It isn’t like he’s terribly bitter, he really isn’t, but there is a difference. The biggest one, more than that he knows how to exorcise a demon and they don’t, is that he knows himself pretty well. He has learned to trust himself over the years. Maybe it had something to do with a Drakon rushing at you full speed, you have no weapon, you have to listen to what your body says – dodge the hell outta its way, trick it over the cliff. Maybe it had something to do with his father never trusting him enough, and having to learn to do it yourself. Did it with a damn switchblade. A gun. Salt and herbs and Latin chants he still doesn’t know the meaning to. And he’s learned that when his gut tells him to do something, it’s sometimes best to shut up and do it. So he gets in the truck, shoves all the junk aside onto the passenger seat and starts the engine.

 


	3. Trophy of Grace

Chapter Three, Trophy of Grace

 

 The drive is quiet because he doesn’t turn on the music. He knows what kind of songs will blast out of the stereo. Jecht’s music is loud. It’s because of his father that Tidus started hating hard rock. Not fair to the music, but whatever.

 Tidus thinks – but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to make room for it, even the smallest corner of his mind. Rational thoughts. He already knows he’s crazy, so he doesn’t need his mind screaming at him, too. Years of practice. His father not saying a word beside him. That damn music that hurts his eardrums with the bass that vibrates the whole car. Staring straight ahead, and trying hard not to think anything because thinking hurts. What did I do this time? It starts there. Gets worse like a patient waiting to die. Yellow fever, burning in the sunlight. Tidus has perfected the skill because it’s his defense mechanism. His only defense against the oppressive silence.

 So when Tidus pulls over and kills the engine two hours later, at three forty-five, his mind is blissfully empty. He lets his gut take him up the short steps, all too familiar, tries not to think how he might never walk them again after he climbs them down this time. He hasn’t realized it before but the night air is blue. It cuts icy into his skin and shakes his careful concentration for a second. For a second, in wild panic he thinks, _what the hell am I doing here,_ but he’s already pressing the doorbell.

 Oh, this is nuts.

 It’s a torture of a wait and it takes forever. He drowns and chokes at least a thousand times in those – two, three? Minutes. He doesn’t dare ring again.

 When the door opens, Yuna’s hair is a little disheveled but she’s staring at Tidus wide-eyed and he knows she hasn’t been sleeping.

 “Tidus?” Her voice isn’t laced with sleep, either. She calls his name and suddenly his thoughts are back again – only he has no idea what to do with them. Burn them, maybe, because now they are cursing his stupid self for shutting them out, taking them here to deal with this. Easy for his feet to climb those stairs – they don’t have to face her blue-green eyes and say something that will maybe make sense. Hopefully.

 “I… uh,” he croaks out. Curses. Yuna doesn’t move, nor blink, and he can see her cat peering curiously at him behind her. It looks like it’s smirking.

 He looks at her again. Tries to read her expression, but can’t see beyond the obvious surprise. She didn’t think he’d come running like this, hell, even _he_ didn’t think he’d be that stupid. So how did he get here?

 Millions of thoughts are swirling inside his head and it’s making him sick like he’s dancing on a ship in the middle of a storm. He’s starting to feel his breaths shortening.

 “What’re you doing here?” She finally says. “It’s like… four in the morning.”

 “I know, I just – sorry.” There, he’s said it. And that small word holds so much weight. Strapped to his ankles, pulling him down into the storm like an anchor.

 “Sorry.” He doesn’t know what else to say so he just repeats the word again.

 Yuna looks at him.

 

_Squall wakes up to the smell._

_He thinks he’s still dreaming. The smoke burns his insides. It smells so awful, you know, burns the skin. Inside of his nose, his throat. The smoke is hot, but he thinks it can burn with the smell alone. So thick but still so sharp. It makes you cry and you don’t know what those tears are for. They drip and roll down your face. You try – you try to save them. Her. You cut the smokes but it doesn’t die. It doesn’t have a head to cut off, it’s not afraid of silver and all the Latin does nothing. Water, you try to find water but the oxygen is seeping out of your lungs and burning in the smoke. You’ve opened your eyes now but all you see is smoke. Death. You stare at death face-to-face, it stares back, and you can’t tell if you’ve died yet._

_You can’t tell if she’s died yet. She isn’t moving, though._

 

 “Wh…” She tries to speak, but Tidus doesn’t want to hear it. So he says it again. Tells her he’s sorry, anything and everything he’s done, if it’s the last thing he’ll be. Sorry, because he can’t think of anything else to say. Should I tell her, should I ask her to trust me again, like all those years ago when she’s trusted him like summer is green, it’s been summer then. Green leaves sang loudly, sun was hot and merciless, and she had trusted him. Tidus remembers.

 He remembers how he had no idea where to go, that first summer vacation. While everyone was popping beer bottles, singing to the music he hates and hot sweat and summer nights, celebrating the end of the year. Tidus just stood there and thought about Jecht, first time in months. How he didn’t want to go back to the dusty navy truck, and an apartment too small for the two of them. To face all the things he’s left behind. To kill a ghoul, chase a werewolf, face his father again.

 Tidus feels the four a.m. in his eyes where Yuna’s are boring into. And it’s cold.

 

_It’s so hot. The breathing, the memory, the smoke. The fire? Squall can’t tell if he’s dreaming again, because he swears he sees a shape over there – a girl, lying on the floor not few feet from him and before he knows he’s crawling on all four. Is this a dream? Is this a memory? Afterlife, maybe. Only he doesn’t seem to have landed in Heaven._

_The smoke fills his head and something sharp cuts into his palm but he keeps going. Phrases like_ smoke inhalation _and_ burnt respiratory system _squeeze their way into the mess but he doesn’t care. His throat on fire and he hasn’t realized he’s been coughing, more like spitting out pieces of his soul. Blood is dripping on the wooden board floor from a deep cut on his palm._

_It doesn’t matter because she isn’t moving and he can’t shout out her name over the coughing fit._

_Why didn’t you stay?_

 

 Why don’t you stay – that was what she said, wasn’t it? She had looked right into his eyes. She’d had that expression that was half-smile, half-something else that he can’t describe. Love, warmth, like she had all of those in a glass jar and doled them out like chocolate.

 When he thought he wasn’t good enough for her – because he never was – she’d laughed and said nothing. Not in so many words, anyway. All those drunk babbles, half-truths that must’ve confused her like hell, and still she hadn’t left.

 “Tidus,” and now she is saying, “what the hell are you talking about?”

 “What?” Tidus asks back, a sharp snap to his head. “What?”

 “What happened? Why do you keep saying you’re sorry?” She finally lets go of the door and reaches out to him. Takes his hand and it’s covered with dirt, and blood from a cut he hasn’t realized before. There must have been a glass shard on the ground of that alleyway. Overall, it’s filthy, but she doesn’t let go.

 

 _Don’t let go, he breathes – breathed – into the memory. Please, don’t leave. He hangs his head and knows it’s too late. Crackle, heat, smoke, suffocation, smell of air burning,_ please don’t leave me _and the sight of her, not moving._

_A silent prayer. Somewhere, a beam falls and crashes. He opens his eyes and the burnt air stings them like needles, straight through his eyeballs. He keeps them open, though. There is no body in front of him. There is no body. It was over a year ago. That is what his brain tells him but it’s also screaming and choking and it’s hard to hear. He doesn’t actually see the fire. Maybe there is no fire. Maybe he should go back to sleep. Maybe he’ll wake up tomorrow morning, a little grumpy and dizzy, and nothing will be wrong._

 

 “Something’s wrong.” Tidus realizes, suddenly. Yuna looks up at him and she’s worried. The small crinkle near her lips. No anger, no frustration, just worry.

 “Are you okay? Tell me what’s wrong. Come inside, Tidus.”

 “I… no. I have to go.” He thinks, tries to think, back to the alleyway as he leaned on the wall and broke down. The sound of wind – he’d thought, slashing against the dead-end of the wall, and…

 Tidus grabs his phone, hands shaking a little. He checks the phone records. The short outgoing call he made to Squall – beneath that, a number he doesn’t recognize. He presses _call_ and holds the phone to his ear, waiting, dreading. Nothing. Voice message – no voice, just a beep. He shows the screen to Yuna.

 “Hey, do you recognize this number?”

 Yuna squints and then shakes her head. “No, why? Tidus, what’s going on?”

 “I’ll tell you later, Yuna.” Tidus says as his stomach sinks. All this time he thought he’s just been looking for Jecht. A son, looking for a father, how much simpler could it get? He hasn’t realized that… he was being hunted? Is that what this is? “I gotta go. A friend… is in trouble.”

Yuna opens her mouth, eyes wide and gleaming in the pallid silver light. Tidus speaks first. “Do you trust me?”

 Then she nods. Like she’s decided something vital, like life-and-death and earth shattering, but he has no time to wonder about that. Tidus feels a tight smile on his lips and an unexpected rush of warmth, but not for too long. Something in his gut pushes him forward. It yells at him to get a move on, so he does.

 

_Squall thinks he hears a sound, over the deafening silence of smokes and also over the crackling roars of the fire somewhere out of his sight. It could’ve been wind. Rustling wind slipping in and out of the flames, slashing the air._

_He thinks that as he feels his consciousness slip, but then it produces another image before it goes –_

_Squall almost cries as she smiles._

 Squall Leonhart, huh? It’s a weird name.

_One year, and he’s already used to the way it breaks his heart every time. Slices –_

_The last thought._

 

 Tidus sees the flames from far away. Not the flames, but the glowing orb that stains the sky like blood. He steps on the pedal.

 Keeps the engine running as he darts out the car, sees the apartment building first. Smoke, people, red, blaring sirens and firemen. It’s six o’ clock and the dawn is breaking in pale blue; almost like the morning is surprised to see the roaring deep orange. The firemen are splashing it with streams of water that look way too feeble. Like they’re branches, poking, and the orange fire is still roaring, getting angrier and bigger.

 This isn’t a normal fire – Tidus thinks, heart dropping. It’s something supernatural. He’d know. He’s lived his whole damn life around weird. He knows. Like – a sweeping glance, people in pajamas looking horrorstruck and huddling around – he knows that Squall is still up there. He runs to the nearest fireman.

 “Hey, there’s someone up there – “

 “We’re aware, sir.” The fireman is patient, impervious to frantic panic of the people, just efficiently doing his job. It isn’t good enough for Tidus.

 “But right now the flames are too strong. We’ll need to subdue – “

 Tidus isn’t listening anymore. Subdue, my ass. He takes a breath, backs away. Waits until the fireman is distracted by a flailing water hose and makes a run for it.

 He thinks he hears people shouting. The front door is blocked, but he won’t get too far on the stairs, anyway. Tidus runs to the back and grabs the ladder. He thinks maybe his palms might be sizzling like those fried eggs he had this morning – feels like a thousand years ago now, doesn’t it?

 A face in the crowd, the quick glance around the people watching their homes burn, no Squall, but something strange. He can’t think about that now, though. The smokes are already getting to him and he coughs it out. Momentary relief, then more push viciously into his mouth and nose, eyes are ears. He keeps going. Pretty soon his palms are numb and he’s still climbing. Squall lives on the third floor, thank god, and when he reaches it he doesn’t even have to break the window. A part of the wall is already gone and he can see nothing but chained walls, smeared with flames. It looks like hell – what he imagines it to look like, at least. And although he knows he is out of his mind to walk into something like that, he does anyway. His thoughts briefly flash on a face – Laguna’s, when he learns that his son has –

 And somehow, burning alive with Squall seems a better alternative than having to see that face. Anything is better than that.

 Tidus hasn’t had much experience with fire, but he knows to crawl and cover his mouth and nose with a handkerchief. He knows enough to recognize that it’s a lost cause. It becomes apparent after only five steps in, but he still makes his way through the corridor and finds the door he’s looking for. It’s open – burnt down, more likely – and Tidus hurries through.

 Somewhere, his rational mind is cursing his stupidity but he tells it to shut up.

 He spots Squall, through the thick smoke that almost kills him, and he isn’t moving. Sheer force of panic carries him to the limp body of the boy, and Tidus drops to the floor beside him. He probably shouldn’t have done that.

 Because Squall is alive, miraculously, but now Tidus can’t get up. His whole body feels burned, scarred like his father. Lucidity burns away fast like the oxygen. Rapid breathing, pathetic attempt to draw in the last of them. Tidus looks at the window not so far from here but has to strain to keep his eyes open. His disjointed thoughts, torn limb to limb by the flames, imagines jumping out that window. A three-story fall. But there is grass down there. Will it be enough?

 Then, as he watches, a beam falls from the ceiling and blocks the window. Tidus almost laughs out loud. Would have, too, if he wasn’t drowning fast.

 He knows this is the end.

 As last moments go, this isn’t the one he’d choose. But then, who can choose their last? He’s heard about lives flashing before their eyes, those people who were lucky enough to have a moment of lucidity in that last breath. As is, Tidus’s head is probably on fire and the dreams and memories mix and die.

 I am going to die, he thinks suddenly. He stares at Squall but it’s hard to see.

 I’m going to die trying to save him. And he’s okay with that. If it means he isn’t the one having to tell Laguna, that his boy is dead and he escaped without him… and that would be worse because it would be dying a thousand times over, in a thousand different ways. And Yuna, the thought of her punches his throat like no fire could ever do, but he knows she’ll be okay too. She’s strong, stronger than Tidus ever hopes to be. The _sorry._ Maybe it had been a foreshadow.

  _I’m going to die trying to find my stupid father._

 And that, he’s not okay with. Pisses him off, really, because Jecht probably wouldn’t care. He’d shrug, maybe. Oh well, too bad. That boy used to make a damn fine burger.

 Yeah, there was that. The only compliment he has ever heard. Maybe he should’ve been a diner cook.

 All he wants to know… The son asks the father, _do you love me, dad?_ It’s not that complicated, is it? Is it something you need to think long and hard about? Invent arguments and shove it in the gaps in the logic? Is it? Do you?

 He could’ve dealt with the disappointments, disapprovals, disparaging, everything – if only he’d known. But he doesn’t, and that’s the problem, isn’t it?

 Then he sees something. The fumes, the flames, but beyond that. Beyond the hellfire. A man walks over to him and the fire does not touch him. Or at least it looks that way. The man, mid-forties with dark hair and a tired face, pair of rimless spectacles, walks straight through the flames like they are just illusion. He stops right in front of Tidus, looks down. Tidus is looking up and feels his consciousness, maybe his life, reeking like water from a loosely knit basket. Holes everywhere, man, it’s stupid. Who puts water in it?

 The man stares, and Tidus doesn’t recognize him – until he does. The face in the crowd from in front of the apartment. Looking strangely out of place, like he’s standing because he has nothing else to do.

 Tidus realizes something else at that moment, as well. He asks to make sure. He’s never seen one before, after all. His voice sounds funny, stained with destruction.

 “Are… are you an Angel?”

 The man bends down wordlessly and puts two fingers on his forehead, gently, and a feeling washes over him. Like Yuna’s love-warmth in the glass jar, but something else too. Blissfully cool on his skin, a light, blue, maybe white. Grace.

 And then he falls asleep. He doesn’t pass out, just sleeps.

 

 When he opens his eyes, he sees pale blue, almost white. It takes a while for him to recognize that it’s the sky. The are outside. They – they?

 Tidus sits up quickly, and sees Squall sitting not far from where he’s been lying down. He looks tired, but otherwise okay. Then Tidus realizes that he’s surprisingly fine as well. No dizziness, no headache, although he must have inhaled enough smoke to combust into flames himself. He looks down and notices that his clothes are fine, too. Also that he’s sitting on scrawny grass – he looks up again and sees that they’re in the backyard of the apartment. The morning has come, and although smoke remains in the air as a coarse whiff, the fire is out.

 “You okay?” Squall calls. Tidus looks at him.

 He’s sitting with his knees up, a wary expression on his face. Tidus nods carefully, making sure it’s true. He wiggles his toes and tries getting up. No problem. Feels like he’s had the best night’s sleep, actually.

 “Yeah, you?”

 “Fine.” Squall says shortly, then, “thanks for coming to get me.”

 “Don’t mention it.” And Tidus explains what’s happened. He tries to be succinct, but Squall is a good listener. “I think someone – something – was trying to mess with our heads.”

 “Yeah,” Squall sighs. “I was pretty messed up too, when I woke up and… the room was on fire.”

 Tidus raises his eyebrows. “No, really?”

 “No, I mean,” Squall smiles a little at that. “I didn’t realize the fire was real. I thought I was dreaming still.”

 “Still?” Tidus asks, not sure if this is a safe territory. But they’ve just lived through death together, and Squall tells him. He’s as succinct as they come, but Tidus understands.

 “I’m sorry.” He says softly. Squall shrugs.

 “I’m okay.”

 “How can you be okay?” Tidus asks. Not accusing, not disbelieving. Just wondering. He imagines watching Yuna die, and it sends a shiver to his bones.

 “I remember her.” Squall says after a short hesitation, plucking weeds absent-mindedly. “I have a good memory.” A slight smile. “I’ll be okay.”

 Tidus blinks. He isn’t sure if he understands, but then Squall spots something over Tidus’s shoulder and starts to stand up. Someone – before Tidus can turn his head, a blur moves past him and crushes into Squall, crushes him with a hug. Tidus gets up slowly, and watches.

 “I came here as soon as I could.” Laguna is saying, as he lets go of Squall. “Raine said she never called, and I knew something else was goin’ on. God…”

 “I’m okay,” Squall says again. He gestures toward Tidus.

 “Tidus pulled me out of there.”

 “Well, technically I…” Tidus doesn’t get to finish his sentence before Laguna gives him a hug, too. Squall is stifling a grin and Tidus goes stiff, not used to this at all. Thankfully, Laguna lets go quickly. His face is worn, new lines carved from worrying.

 “Thank you,” he says.

 “There was an Angel.” Tidus blurts out.

 “Angel?” Laguna asks, pausing. Squall is just looking at him and Tidus doesn’t know if Squall remembers. His own memory is becoming distant, hidden by the shadows and smokes.

 “He was the one who pulled us out, I think.”

 “Huh.” Laguna raises his eyebrows, not quite believing. Tidus shrugs. “I mean, there has to be some good Angels, right?”

 “Yeah…” Laguna considers this. “I guess. Huh. And he wasn’t that tall guy chasing your father?”

 “No. Different guy.” Tidus answers. Laguna concentrates some more, then shrugs it off like it isn’t important. It probably isn’t.

 “Doesn’t matter. I’m just glad – “Then he looks at Squall, and Tidus thinks about telling him that he would’ve died before volunteering to face Laguna without his boy, but doesn’t. Something in his eyes, something emanating from his whole being, stops him from interfering. A father looking at his son, alive, and it is as simple as that.

 Tidus remembers the thought he had when he thought he was going to die. Frustrated thoughts, wondering if Jecht ever loved him and that was the million dollar question. He realizes he still doesn’t know, but he looks at Squall back at him. Tidus remembers the words that’s been said. _I’m okay. I’ll be okay._

 

 Squall and Laguna insist that they want to help Tidus through to the end. Curious, he thinks, about his dad. Tidus thinks about warning them as he approaches the hidden stairway leading down to the bunker, in the middle of a deserted back street. Some kind of a bomb shelter. He decides against it, because no warning will do justice. He waits after he pulls the bell. It’s a different kind of a wait from the one in front of Yuna’s apartment, a lifetime ago.

 No one answers for a minute, but Tidus has no doubt that Jecht is on the other side. He knocks then – once, twice, short pause, then little more rapidly. Jecht would recognize the knock. He would open the door- if he wants to, that is, and Tidus is never sure about that.

 But then, after a couple of breaths and an exchanged look between Squall and Laguna, the door finally opens. They’re standing on the staircase and blocking the light from behind, so Jecht wouldn’t really see his face. Tidus is glad for that – he isn’t sure what it might be saying. He clears his throat.

 “Hi, dad.” He starts, pauses, doesn’t know what to say next. Jecht squints at the light like he finds it annoying.

 “What’re you doin’ here?” He says. Tidus realizes that his voice really isn’t as coarse and black as he’s imagined.

 “Uh, lookin’ for you.” He answers. Jecht eyes Tidus suspiciously. He hasn’t actually come out of the bunker, just opened the door a crack and poked his head around it.

 “Why?” He frowns. “And who are those people?”

 Tidus decides to answer the second question first. “They’re hunters, dad. Squall and Laguna – they’ve been helping me.”

 “Help you? With what?”

 “Finding you.” Jesus, it’s like a hamster in a rut, going ‘round and ‘round.

 Laguna tries to be helpful. “We thought you were in trouble, Mr. Ardenhein.”

 Squall looks at Laguna like he’s surprised his dad has remembered Tidus’s last name. Tidus has to stifle a snicker.

 “Why would you think that?” Jecht is asking Tidus, not Laguna, like he hasn’t spoken at all.

 “I called. You didn’t pick up. Then I went to your place…”

 “Why?”

 Tidus considers lying – _‘cause it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, dad ­_ – but decides not to.

 “I left my trophies there.” He shrugs.

 “Yeah, the _trophies_.” Jecht snorts, incredulously. “Look, I ain’t in no trouble, and even if I was, I certainly ain’t troubling _you_ with it. You go on do your… baseball or somethin’.”

 “It’s football.” Tidus says automatically.

 “Whatever.” Jecht shrugs. “You could be cheerleading, for all I care.”

 “Mr. Ardenhein, Tidus really has gone a long way…” Laguna starts valiantly, but Jecht cuts him off with a wave of his hand.

 “Yeah, well, he can keep goin’.” Then he turns to his son. His eyes are blue, but deeper – almost black sometimes. “Don’t bother lookin’ for me again, boy. You walked out, I didn’t stop you, and there was a good reason for that.”

 “Okay.” Tidus sighs, because what else is he going to say?

 “Wait.” It’s Squall this time, to Tidus’s surprise. He glances back at Squall and his brows are furrowed, silently angry. Angry for Tidus. Huh, that’s sort of nice, Tidus thinks, wondering why he isn’t angry himself.

 “That’s it?” Squall is saying. “That’s what you say to your son – let’s never see each other again?”

 Tidus is about to say _Squall, it’s okay_ , when Jecht barks out a sudden laughter.

 “That’s actually not half-bad. Hey, son,” he turns to Tidus. “Let’s never see each other again, yeah?”

 “Well,” Tidus considers this. There is a moment of pause, a silent moment as a great wave of tsunami climbs to the sky, before its wings burn and it crashes down. It doesn’t last long, though. And when the giant wave hits shore, it’s surprisingly quiet. Just a normal wave, after all.

 “Okay,” and he pauses. “Take care, dad.”

 And Squall and Laguna are staring at him like they don’t believe this. All the investigating, the worry – imagined or not – and the almost-burning-alive, all that roll off right here like they were beheaded, in less than five minutes. Tidus starts to turn away.

 There nothing more to be said, is there? Or maybe there is. Tidus has no idea how this has escalated into the worst fight they ever had without actually fighting, but since it looks like it might actually be the last time he’ll see his dad, there is just one more thing. He turns again, calls out to a half-shut door. “Wait.”

 Jecht peers out again. Tidus takes a short breath.

 “I hate you for being a sucky dad,” he says. “But I don’t hate you for ruining my life.”

 The words come out like they’ve been waiting for this moment – maybe they have. “Because you didn’t. You can’t.”

 There is a short moment, Jecht says nothing. Now Tidus really has nothing else to say, so he turns around. It’s then that he hears his father, almost too quiet, “I’m sorry.”

 When Tidus looks back, the door is slammed shut. He might as well have imagined it.

 

 “So,” Tidus looks at the other two. The sun has climbed higher into the sky, shooting tepid lights on the bricks of the alley. They make the expressions on their faces paler – or maybe more intense. Tidus suddenly remembers last night, all light swallowed whole by the heat of the fire. Suddenly he feels a tight, warm ball of gratitude choking his throat. Squall and Laguna don’t look so happy, though.

 “Your dad’s an ass.” Squall declares and Laguna shushes him but only half-heartedly. Tidus just soaks in the gratitude like the sunray. Grateful for a new day and Squall’s anger and Laguna’s worry. It’s okay, though.

 “It’s okay.” Tidus laughs. “He is – but, you know, whatever. I meant what I said, that he didn’t ruin my life…” and he looks at Squall when he says the next part, because he thinks he might finally understand.

 “I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”

 Squall’s face relaxes. He studies Tidus with his ice-blue eyes, maybe judging the sincerity of it – is it lighter than a feather, and all that. Finally he nods.

 “Well,” Laguna starts a little hesitantly. “I have no idea what you two are talking about.” He looks at his son like he’s an archaeological puzzle. Squall breaks out a laughter at that. The sound is lighter than Tidus had expected. Pale and intense at the same time, like the mid-morning sun above them.

 “We’re talking about you.” Squall answers.

 Laguna looks pleasantly surprised at his son’s laughter, so his mock-annoyance isn’t very convincing at all. “Huh, mind speaking English?”

 Tidus joins the laughter. He didn’t know that it was about Laguna, but maybe it really is. Squall has a father Tidus will never have, not in this lifetime anyway, but he’s okay. Like Squall says he will be okay after that fire a year ago, and Tidus wants to believe that’s true.

 “So where are you headed now?” Squall asks when the laughter dies down. Its scent lingers, though. Surprisingly warm.

 “Back to school.” Tidus shrugs. “Man, I’m gonna have some explaining to do…”

 “What’re you gonna tell her?” Squall looks amused.

 “I honestly don’t know. Maybe the truth, maybe not.” He thinks of Yuna, white dress and all the other things too. Then his eyes land on Laguna, scratching his head, and he remembers something.

 “Or, you know what I _will_ tell her, though.” Tidus brightens. “That I was with Laguna Loire all this time…”

 “Yeah!” Laguna’s face breaks into a brilliant grin. He gives Squall a superior look.

 “Yeah, yeah.” Squall rolls his eyes. Then to Tidus, “take care, Tidus.”

 Tidus nods, smiling. Laguna laughs too. He holds out a hand and the shake is warm. “Keep in touch, alright? And not only when you have a family crisis.”

 “Of course.” Tidus grins.

 He watches them get into the silver car and drive away. The alleyway is narrow and bumpy, but the car manages to weave its way through.

 Tidus turns to his own car, thinking he will have to grab his trophies before he heads to Yuna. He’s thinking the shelf in the living room… or the bedside? He’ll have to ask Yuna about that, he decides.

 He turns on the music and Bruce Springsteen sings, _I wanna know if love is real_ , and he leaves it on. Because, yeah, okay, he hates rock music but sometimes it’s okay too. Especially when he can’t remember why he hates it in the first place. So what the hell. He hums along to the lyrics.

  _But ‘till then, tramps like us, baby we were born to run._

Epilogue, _Haayah_

 

 He flexes his hands. They feel good. Natural, comfortable. Perfect. Except there are too many scars – dark blotches, raised pink ones, fading bruises. He remembers the boy and his smooth hands, hay-golden hair. He thinks it would’ve been nicer…

 Something squirms inside him. Almost silent, insignificant, but it’s there. He barks out a laughter.

 “All right, all right. I don’t need to touch the boy anymore.”

 Although, if this body had died, the boy would’ve been the one. And it would’ve been nicer, but this is okay too. He feels a swelling pride. The feeling is shockingly vivid and intoxicating. Most humans things are.

 And he did good, didn’t he? Studied humans, knew what make them tick – spill, say yes, whatever. And he could have chased the man all eternity, but all it took was tormenting his son. And his friends. All you have to say is _yes_ , and I’ll stop…

 Another squirm. He laughs. Feisty for a human chained to a comet. He’s in a forgiving mood today, though. The man before this one had been an improvisation. Nowhere as good as the true vessel. Plus, the stupid glasses.

 “I even did you a favor, didn’t I?” He talks to the empty room. “I didn’t let him know it wasn’t you. Told him to stay away. Told him I was, you were, sorry.” He nods, satisfied with himself.

 “Yes, well, I think it’s stupid you humans don’t speak what you think. You lead such short, insignificant lives.”

 He yawns, stretches his arm, and answers. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go to Brazil. Hear the sun’s golden there.”


End file.
